Here are the major news stories associated with the Newcastle club for today in no particular order of priority.

Sam gave quite a lengthy interview with Sky Sports News last night and most of the stories emanate from what he said during the interview.

Certain players like Heinze and Queudrue will not be coming to Newcastle and Sam is still pursuing defensive reinforcements.
News of the raid on three Premiership clubs yesterday morning is still covered widely - with Newcastle being one of the clubs raided.

• The first story we run today is related to Sam’s long interview with Sky Sports News in which he basically rules out Franck Queudrue and Gabriele Heinze coming to the club. We add Habib Beye to this list since less than a week ago Habib said he was staying at Marseilles. So there’s three players we can rule out - but don’t think these moves will not be resurrected in the press despite Sam’s statements last night.

  Gabriele Heinze

• Sam also speaks about the defenders he still wants to bring to the club before the season starts on August 11th at Bolton. Sam’s looking for big strong defenders but he admits almost every other Premier club is into the transfer market now - which makes things more difficult since there is now more competition for each player made available.

  Sam Allardyce

• Good news today in that Sam has met with Oba Martin’s agents and they assure Sam there is no truth in the rumors that Oba wants to leave Newcastle. Sam is still nervous about the release clause in Oba’s contract which means that a club could come in before August 31st - make a big enough bid and Oba could be off. We also discuss the possibility of Edmilson arriving in January from Barcelona - which we still think is a strong possibility - and obviously Sam thinks very highly of the Brazilian.

  Oba Martins

• Sam also speaks about the defenders he still wants to bring to the club before the season starts on August 11th at Bolton. Sam’s looking for big strong defenders but he admits almost every other Premier club is into the transfer market now - which makes things more difficult since there is now more competition for each player made available.

  Sam Allardyce
  

• For the first time Sam expresses some frustration at the new board and their slowness in going after transfer targets. Sam has to explain to the board - who are all nearly brand new to football why he is after a certain player - and from what Sam says it has slowed down progress in the transfer market for us. That’s becasue we are often too slow in pursuing targets. Sam is not patient as far as transfer targets go and he is extremely motivated to build a good squad for the coming campaign - which may explain some of his frustration.

  Deputy Chairman Chris Mort

• We did cover the news of the Newcastle raid last night and also gave some additional background on the findings of the Steven’s report. While the reports say the two investigations are not linked - the evidence garnered by the Steven’s inquiry was apparently handed over to the London police force and seem to have formed the basis for the raids. We beleive it’s the agents involved who are under investigation and not the clubs - but you wouldn’t believe it by reading some of the reports.

  St. James’ Park

• Other stories that are reported today:
  • The squad numbers have been released this morning for next season. Czech defender David Rozehnal takes over the No.4 shirt, while fellow new boy Joey Barton will be wearing No.7. Mark Viduka, who was Big Sam’s first signing as Toon boss, will don the No.36, and most recent arrival Geremi will be sporting the No.20 jersey.
    Elsewhere in the squad there are new numbers for Nobby Solano (15) and Albert Luque (19).
  • Joey Barton talks again about coming to Newcastle to win trophies - and he seems excited about the prospects for next season. Hopefully - before too long Joey can help us win that trophy that hasn’t happened for almost 40 years.

    Joey Barton

  • The Journal reports that Newcastle have held talks with a second French left-back. Both Newcastle United and Wigan Athletic are both said to have been in contact with Franck Signorino of Nantes - as a possible alternative to Franck Queudrue - now that we know that move is not going to happen.
• Here’s some funny football quotes for today from one of the funniest managers - Ron Atkinson - this is to lighten up the day - which we all need at some point
  

  “I know where he should have put his flag up, and he’d have got plenty of help.”

  “That’s not the type of header you want to see your defender make, with his hand.”

  “You don’t want to be giving away free kicks in the penalty area.”

  “Liverpool will think ‘we could have won this 2-2.’”

  Ron Atkinson

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